Sorry if this has been asked already, a quick search didn't reveal anything.

Passive defense in SR5 i given by Intuition + Reaction; in SR4 it was only Reaction in most cases. On top of that, attacks are now limited by the weapon's accuracy, whereas defense is not, as long as you don't make an active defense that uses a skill (which is weird in my opinion, but that's another problem).

My fear is that characters that invest heavily in their defense will become nearly untouchable. For example, a mage with Intuition 4, Reaction 4 and Willpower 4, with a sustained power 4 increase attribute spell on each of them (with three sustaining foci for example). Add on top of that a sustained power 6 combat sense spell and that mage has 30 dice when going on full defense. That makes 10 hits on average, more than most limits on attack rolls.

Am I missing something?

Increase Attribute requires a Force equal to the target attribute. E.g. to Increase from 4 to 8 requires Force 8, not Force 4. Therefore, those sustaining Foci need to be Rating 8.

Also, many attack options (such as various bursts/choke) allow you to penalize the target's Dodge DP.

Revised:

yeah that is plenty scary so you have a couple options.

Send a mage in astrally to deactivate his foci in the middle of a fight so those defences go down. While reactivating the foci is a simple action for each plus he still has to recast again for each giving your shooter time to help his asthma (took the allergy negative you know) with a high velocity tracheostomy.

Grenades in small hallways will probably also work to some degree.


Other step is leave him alone, if he is running 30 Force (8+8+8+6 = 30 which is also his cap if magic is 6 (magic x 5 is max) ) in foci nonstop the foci addiction alone will ruin him down the road.

I don't think so:

To me that means the value of the attribute before casting the spell, otherwise "augmented" would not be in parentheses. Here it simply means that the attribute may already be augmented before casting the spell.

I would not go solely by CGL's tendency to use improper brackets or placement. Have to dig this up in the forum somewhere but this was mentioned and it is Force against the Intended Stat. You still have to roll enough hits to actually get that boost. Extra hits that would take you over the targeted stat value are ignored.

Equal to the Target Attribute means Force 4, not 8, in the example, as the Target Attribute is 4. The End result of the Spell would likely be 8 (limit of 4 hits), but that is not the target attribute. At least that is how it always was in SR4A. Let me compare to SR5.

Yep, I am right. The Spell must be of Force equal to the Attribute (Augmented or not). So, Force 4 in this case. Just like in SR4A.

If they had meant that, they could have written, "The Attribute is increased by an amount equal to the hits scored, up to the target’s augmented maximum, or the spell's Force, whichever is lower (any hits that would increase the Attribute beyond its augmented maximum or Force are ignored)."

I read it the same way Odsh does.

Edit: I thought I was replying to Sendaz.

You mean like the actual Quote in the book?

I stand corrected.

So for foci addiction it is just 18 total Force when he powers it all up. Still not healthy in the long run, so just lure him into leaving them on all the time and let him burn slooowwwly away.

Other than that, again try to shutdown the foci or use situations where he won't be able to employ the dodge to full effect.

Its plenty healthy as long as he gets his fix, and I can stop anytime I want to.

Foci are just a doorway device to the real hard stuff.... Mana Enhanced Reagent Dust (MERD), Elemental Smoke, Pixie Wing Powder, Dragon Spinal Fluid *shivers in memory of past delights*

The mage was just an example. An adept with solid attributes and a few initiate grades can also boost his Combat Sense to the point where he can nearly dodge any attack that calls for a defense test. The dice pool for defense increases with the adept's experience. The limits on weapons don't.

full burst = -9 dice. full burst with a shotgun can get even a little bit more.

most area effect attacks don't allow a dodge roll.

pretty sure you don't get a defence roll against something you don't know is coming as well, so try catching them off guard.

but yes, an adept with a very high magic attribute, or a magician with some high force sustained spells who is probably addicted to his focuses, can indeed get a crazy dodge pool.

it's worth noting that initiation alone won't boost the adept's cap on combat sense though... he needs to actually raise magic, which takes quite a bit of karma to do.

Dodge, Dodge, Dodge, Dead!

Even a street sam can be pretty nasty at this starting out at 9 reaction, and 6 intuition. Not as high as magic by any means, but also not nearly as hard to lose, or become adicted to (my ess is only a .02, no problem.) Pair that up with some smoke/flash gernades and you have a lovely dancer.

Yes, it's definitely a problem if characters optimize for it, and Increase [Attribute] spells are a big part of it.

It's possible to have 32 dice on defense plus 7 Edge out of chargen with no focus addiction, and you can be a very strong spellcaster and summoner as well:


That character can sustain two Increase Attribute spells at a time at Force 4, either on Int + Wil for maximum defense or Cha + Wil for summoning big spirits. Combat Sense can also be sustained in the Force 1 focus by casting at Force 1 and using either Edge or reagents to increase the limit -- it will average 4 hits when used with reagents or 7-8 hits when cast with Edge (that makes the drain physical, but it's only 2P and easily soaked).

With Int + Wil sustained, that's a base of 17 dice on defense, +7 from Combat Sense, and +8 with Full Defense, for a total of 32. The character also has plenty of edge for Second Chance if an attack ever does make it through -- 32 dice with Second Chance averages 18 hits.

With Focused Concentration, the total force of foci being used is only 5 compared to Magic 6, so focus addiction isn't even a problem.

As for how to deal with the situation... grenades and other area attacks don't allow a defense test, so that's probably the easiest route. Another option is to have wards all over the place so it's inconvenient to use active foci and sustained spells. If you want to get into house rules, I might only allow the Increase [Attribute] spell for physical attributes.

"Note that limits generally only apply to tests involving a dice pool derived from a skill and an attribute. Tests using a single attribute, or two attributes, do not use limits." Pg 47

I think this indicates that Dodge rolls (Att+Skill) it has a Limit of your Physical Limit. on another note, If this isn't a good spot for it...where else would you use Limits?

EDIT: the infamous double post -.-

Dodge (Gymnastics), Parry (Blades/Clubs), and Block (Unarmed) interrupt actions do, indeed, use Physical limits. The book even says as much.

But if you go Full Defense, you add Willpower to your Reaction + Intuition, meaning you don't face a cap.

So if you don't have much strength, but a good defensepool (rea + int), you better don't use 5 point interrupt defenses without edge. They might come in handy when your defnsepool is low though.

Increasing the limit of a force 1 spell with reagents and storing it in a force 1 sustaining focus is very cheesy and as a GM I would probably disallow it. It can be used for many different spells and has the potential to break a lot of things. These regents really mess up a lot of the balancing put into limits and spell force.

A Force 1 focus should be rather easy to dispel...

Walking into an area with a BG count of +/- 1 will shut them down outright.

This... My Magical Characters run into BGC/Wards often enough that a Rating 1 Focus is only useful about 60% of the time.

Oh yeah, forgot about wards. At least for areas where awakened will take serious for magical security.

And just looked it up to make sure. Dispelling a Force 1 in a focus spell is a Counterspelling + Magic [Astral] vs. caster's Magic + 1 opposed test, all you need is one net hit to end the spell, and you'll take 2S in drain doing it. If you've got a Power focus or the right flavor of Counterspelling Sorcery focus, you'll get those dice right along with it.

This is wrong, you didn't read the whole thing. The opposed test is indeed much easier with force 1 (Magic + Counterspelling[Astral] vs Force + Magic), but you still have to dispel every hit the caster had when casting the spell, and this number might be pretty high. It's a drawback that is far from being at the level of the advantage you get.

For barriers, you can make a test to pass through instead of using brute force, and you are required one net hit for you +1 per each focus, still doable unless the barrier is quite high.

As for the background count, it's not in the book. The current errata states that you apply a DP penalty for a bg count, and that doesn't affect a sustaining focus with a spell already on it. Otherwise, it affects your spellcasting test with a negative DP, that's all.

It takes more than one net hit to dispel -- each net hit reduces the caster's original hits by 1 (p.295). So you'd need 7 net hits to completely take down a Combat Sense spell that was originally cast with 7 hits.

You could alternately deactivate the focus using Disenchanting -- that only takes 1 net hit (and causes no drain), but you need LOS to the focus. Assuming the focus is kept inside clothing, you'd need an enemy caster who's astrally perceiving and has the Disenchanting skill. It's certainly possible, but it's not the kind of thing it's plausible to run into on a regular basis. And even then, you have an enemy mage -- who should be a major threat on her own -- spending actions just to weaken your defenses.

You'd need one net hit for each focus and for each sustained spell. So if you're sustaining two spells in two foci, you'd need four net hits to pass through a barrier with all of them. You can get through if you try enough times, but it might take a few rounds of standing around looking awkward and suspicious as you try to enter the bank.

That's also something security guards could be trained to watch for: people who have trouble crossing the line where they know a ward is set up. Though that's getting pretty deep into the territory of "magic is overpowered, but you can balance it by constantly applying in-game anti-mage tactics."

However, Most Force 1 Sustaining Foci can only have 1 Net Hit, as it is limited to 1 Hit. If they expended Edge on it, that may be different, but that is not the expected standard situation.

Besides, Mana Static (the Spell) of any force will shut it down.

Why is that treading upon the in-game effects of Magical Security? If you DON'T use magical security, then you are not applying the drawbacks of Magic. Magic IS powerful... But so is logically applied Magical Security...

I think what people often forget is that we don't always roll expected outcomes in this game. We tend to think "attacker rolls 7 dice, defender rolls 10 therefore defender never gets hit". This isn't how dice rolling works.

It only takes the defender to roll lower than expected and the attacker to roll higher than expected for a hit to be achieved. This becomes much more likely if they get shot at by say 4 opponents. Then is the dodge mage built to soak? I doubt it.

This is why trolls and things with immunity to normal weapons and regeneration were significantly OP in 4th ED because you were often rolling 5-12 dice to dodge (12 if you were an adept only, otherwise it was 9-10 with maxed out reaction) against multiple attacks of equal of higher dice (a 5 agi, 5 firearms goon with a smartlink and specialisation rolls 14 dice). Soak was king and runners were always trying to get full body armour with stealth polymers.

You should be reluctant to jump on the 'grenades solve all problems lol!' crowd bandwagon because in 5th Ed they are hideously broken and basically insta-jib all characters besides tanks. I think focus addiction is a ruleset that is ignored too much. If you've got someone rolling 3 foci to enhance their dodge through the roof then make them pay for it. This isn't even considering the negative repurcussions of running foci all the time anyway (such as glowing like a christmass tree in astral space)

Roll with your standard setups, maybe just chuck in an extra shotgun guy or 2 every now and then and you'll probably find the challenge will be sufficient. It's important that you let things play out before trying to negate a percieved issue.

Finally if you're really worried about people making characters that obviously are outside the spirit of the game then just don't allow them. That's what I do whenever someone comes to my table with a masking nosferatu with 4 foci constatly runnig who wears full heavy body armour but appears just as 'an aloof elf'...................

Glowing like a Christmas tree is easy to plan for, and with a bit of Karma and time, easily avoided by Initiating towards Masking and Extended Masking.
As for Focus Addiction, by using Force 2 to Force 4 Foci (I like Force 3, but sometimes go to Force 4 with extended experience), and not using them all at once, it is easily avoidable.

Maybe trade Extended Masking for Flexible Signature, so your astral signatures don't hang around for quite as long. Masking now also covers your Initiate Grade in bonded foci.

The Triumvirate of Metamagics, as far as I am concerned. My Current Mystic Adept acquired those first.
Flexible Signature, Masking, Extended Masking, and eventually Centering.

That's 4!

(but I agree with your choices)

Our three main weapons are surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency, and a fanatical devotion to the Pope. Four, four main weapons - wait, I'll come in again...

...and considering you can't start the game with any it's really a long road before the character can confortably do this to avoid negative repercussions. After investing 100 karma into this (possibly more) then you are probably a fairly experience runner, not to mention all the Roleplayed metaplane quests (or other trials) that the player has gone on to initiate 4 times.............

Players always seem to gloss over these things because GMs rarely enforce them. Therefore they are not the simple solutions players tend to see them as.

13+16+19+22, or 60 Karma.

To the original topic, I think the most important takeaway is that Limits, yet again, are kinda a bad idea.

It's probably not super-relevant to this conversation, but I did want to point out that Combat Sense (the spell) is listed as an Active Detection spell. Unless that needs to be in errata, it means it is resisted.

Back to the original topic:

I forgot to mention another big change in SR5 that dramatically improves the defense mechanisms: full defense doesn't forfeit your next action anymore, instead you simply loose 10 initiative points (which would be the same as loosing your last action for the turn instead). And more importantly, full defense lasts now for the entire turn instead of only until your next action. In SR4, being on full defense meant that you didn't do anything else. In SR5, you can combine full defense with other actions, provided you have more than one action per turn of course.

Just FYI, in the end, we agreed on the following house rules:
1) SR4-style full defense
2) Combat Sense: the spell doesnt exist anymore. The adept power now costs 0.25 power points per level (instead of 0.5), but only gives a bonus dice every two levels (instead of 1 die per level). This effectively halves the maximum amount of bonus dice you can get from that power, but with the same "bang for you buck" as before.

Indeed it is... The Triumverate is the first three... Centering is just icing on the cake.

It only costs 44 Karma (with a Group/Ordeal - 8+10+12+14), plus 5 Karma to join the Magical Group; so 49 Total... Not much in the grand scehme of things.

Ummmmm... So why not cost the Power at 0.5 Per Level, and Use Levels as your bonus (rather than 0.25/level and 1/2 Level Bonus). Same effect, less craziness.

I had wondered that at first, but then noticed that if you cap the power you're then getting half the bonus for the usual PP cost.

Would've been simpler to add "Max level at 1/2 Magic, rounded down." or maybe "Max Level 3" as a house rule. At least then a player wouldn't feel like they're wasting a quarter power point on nothing.

Yes, that is the point.



The maximum level for an adept power is given by Magic, and I prefer to avoid making an exception to that rule if possible. Moreover, this could potentially have weird side-effects on rules that take the level of the power into account (I admit, none comes to my mind at the moment).

There are plenty of Adept Powers possessing hard limits that have absolutely nothing to do with Magic Rating. *shrug*

That may be, but in this case it isn't a hard limit and depends on the Magic Rating.

I see absolutely no need for the change to Combat Sense myself; might be why I have the opinion I do... *shrug*

By the way it looks like in SR5 masking is masking+improved masking as it hides focuses on its own.

But Extended Masking in SR4 also included your anchored, sustained, and quickened spells in addition to your bonded foci. Masking in SR5 doesn't include any of your spells.

When the magic splat book comes out, likely Extended Masking will come back and include these.

I would choose an elf for this. You lose metatype points and your Increased Attribute (Charisma) force 4 focus/sustained concentration trick (Unless you wanted to lowball Charisma, but why would you?), but you gain low-light vision (saving you a whopping 0.25 Qi points) and the two points of Charisma could be worth it to you. YMMV.

I wouldn't do the Improved Reflexes 3. That's not stackable with anything else, and you can do the Force 1 + reagents trick to cast Increase Reflexes. If you want enough dice to get 8 hits for the full +4 Initiative, +4 dice, then you can spend Edge for Second Chance (big dice pool gives more failures than exploding sixes) and use an Aid Sorcery spirit service. You can then spend the 3.5 Qi points on Combat Sense to stack with your Combat Sense spell.

Maybe you don't need Focused Concentration at rating 4. Maybe rating 1 would suffice (for Combat Sense or Increase Reflexes), and you could instead go for an extra point of Magic. That would be another Edge hit, but good for your character concept, in my opinion. It would give you another available Qi point, another die for casting (and summoning), another die for those spells of yours to resist counterspelling, and another die for you, your foci and spells to press through astral barriers, making it very useful to you.

If you want to go even further with the Increase Attribute spells (You already have three, four if you go with Increase Reflexes) you can add things like Heal and Stabilize and pick up a health spell specialization to get more dice on those spells. Note that your sustaining focuses have to match spell type, so in a pinch, you can use your rating 1 heath sustaining focus to sustain your Force 1 Heal + reagents.

Other tricks? Maybe get the Mystic Armor adept power and the Armor spell (Force 1 + reagents + second chance + Aid Sorcery if you want) to stack with your armor jacket. Why not throw in an Increase Attribute (Body) in for good measure? And a helmet or a riot shield. Heck, why not 14 points of Mystic Armor? Why are you looking at me like that?

For that last one, maybe pick dwarf and dump Edge. You get -1 Reaction, but + 2 Body, +1 Willpower, and thermographic vision. But yeah, the Reaction and Edge is probably way more valuable to you.